


haunting you haunting me

by Alecto



Series: Fictober 2020 [6]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Developing Relationship, Emotional Constipation, Fictober 2020, Friends With Benefits, Hook-Up, Hopeful Ending, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Loneliness, M/M, Melancholy, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:14:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29293506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alecto/pseuds/Alecto
Summary: Kaiba's life had always featured a rotating cast of ghosts. He just never figured that Jounouchi would join them, or that he would wish otherwise.
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Series: Fictober 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2007610
Comments: 17
Kudos: 51





	haunting you haunting me

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober 2020 Day 7 prompt: "yes I did, what about it?"

Kaiba had optimized his morning routine for efficiency, not comfort. But it wasn't immutable and had gone through several permutations over the years. Most recently, Mokuba's departure to college in America had spurred him to revise his schedule. His alarm still went off at seven sharp—half an hour to shower and dress. While the first of his three morning-coffees brewed, he always knocked out at least a handful of emails from his inbox. He'd converted the portion of his morning previously devoted to breakfast with his little brother into an earlier commute to beat the morning traffic. For breakfast, he opted for his assistant to always have something waiting in his office when he arrived no later than 8:15. 

His morning routine wasn't perfect, but it came close.

So when he started taking Jounouchi to his bed in what must have been a fit of insanity, he thought he'd done so with the prescient knowledge that he couldn't have introduced a more disruptive or volatile element into his neatly ordered life.

Jounouchi was nothing if not unpredictable, though.

The sex was loud, passionate, and far more satisfying than it had any right to be. But outside of those six to seven hours where they shared the same bed, the other man was a virtual non-entity in Kaiba's life. He left no trace in Kaiba's bedroom other than a cooling spot of rumpled sheets. Kaiba never found any stray articles of clothing in some forgotten and hard-to-reach corner—no misplaced trinket or accessory, which Jounouchi wore in plenty, on top of his nightstand or his en suite's counter. Neither did Jounouchi blow up his phone with chattering messages that Kaiba knew him to be capable of, nor called him except as a last resort. 

Jounouchi was not a quiet or subtle person. Except in this case of their casual not-friends-with-benefits arrangement. 

This should have been the ideal outcome. They weren't in a relationship. They were casual sex partners and nothing more. But Kaiba had known Jounouchi long enough to find his complete lack of presence...odd. 

Disconcerting. 

Empty. 

At the very least, he should have disrupted Kaiba's finely-tuned morning routine. But Jounouchi was dressed and gone long before Kaiba's alarm even rang. 

Funny, he'd never imagined Jounouchi as a morning person.

He'd asked Jounouchi about it once as they laid panting in Kaiba's over-sized bed after a vigorous round. Jounouchi had tensed visibly before offering a bare-bone explanation about working the early shift. Kaiba saw no reason to question or challenge his answer then. 

They weren't close.

So Jounouchi joined the cast of ghosts that haunted Kaiba's home: the studious but unseen house staff, his brother's palpable absence, and the shade of Gozaburo's influence that waxed and waned in Kaiba like the moon. Like any proper haunting, Jounouchi only existed in the bewitching hours between midnight and dawn, a suffocating yet grounding presence during the night before vanishing without a trace at the day's first light.

He remembered waking early once, roused by the sound of his once-bed-companion fumbling next to the nightstand.

"C'mon, where'd you go, you stupid phone?" Jounouchi had muttered and cast a panicked look at the bedside clock, which read 6:57.

"You left it on the writing desk," Kaiba said, voice croaky for his first words of the day.

Jounouchi froze, his wide eyes snapped to Kaiba's face. "Uh, thanks." He scurried to the desk on the other side of the room, retrieved his phone, and left without another word.

When Kaiba's alarm rang three minutes later, he'd shut it off and stared at his ceiling for almost five whole minutes—a strange pang echoing in the hollow of his chest—before rising for his morning ablutions. 

After that, he pretended to sleep if he ever woke early enough to conflict with Jounouchi's evasive morning routine.

It was better and less awkward for both parties that way, he decided. 

-x-x-x-

It was only a matter of time before something gave. The frequency of Jounouchi's sleepovers had nearly doubled in the last month alone. With the increased visitations, Jounouchi felt less vestigial. He became so real and tangible in those hours they shared that his presence lingered long after he left, even if he continued to leave little physical evidence behind. 

At night, Kaiba placed himself almost close enough to touch the other man in their slumber. Come morning, Jounouchi was more reluctant to untangle himself from Kaiba's sheets while Kaiba pretended to sleep and not notice his companion's departure.

Because in the end, they were two lonely people left behind as everyone else in their lives moved up and out of Domino City.

Two ghosts haunting each other with promises not yet borne out and gaps yet to be bridged. A shared limbo that neither of them could escape.

The turning point was Kaiba rising early to take a conference call with San Francisco, well before Jounouchi even stirred. Usually, he made sure that Jounouchi's sleepovers didn't overlap with any morning business, but last night's rendezvous had been on a whim—a phone call made when the wine sat too heavy in his empty belly and the deserted house weighed like a lead in his chest. 

Glancing over at the content, slumbering form cocooned in his bed, Kaiba found it difficult to regret it, though. For almost a full minute, he thought about reaching out and combing his fingers through Jounouchi's bedraggled hair. In the end, though, his hands never left their place twisted in the sheets. 

He took the call in his home office. The view on the other end of the video conference showcased the jutting obelisk of the Salesforce Tower piercing a clear blue sky. The call lasted an hour and 45 minutes, running well over its scheduled length. By the time Kaiba hung up, he was nursing a headache and an empty stomach. 

Kaiba bypassed his bedroom entirely. At this hour, Jounouchi should be long gone. Which was why it was a shock to bump into him outside the kitchen.

Jounouchi appeared to be caught similarly off-guard. "Shoot, sorry, I thought you'd already left for the day."

"I had an early call."

"Eh, I hope you don't mind, but I rummaged around in there for some quick breakfast." Jounouchi's gaze momentarily dropped to the ground and focused on Kaiba's house slippers. 

"It's fine," Kaiba said. 

He hardly ate in his own home anymore. The vast majority of his meals were taken at the office or with business associates if there was a need for it. As far as he was concerned, the food in his fridge and pantry were more likely to go bad before he touched any of it.

"Okay, I'm out then. Later, Kaiba." 

Then, Jounouchi was gone, once more becoming a specter tantalizing his senses. 

Sighing, Kaiba shook his head and trudged into the kitchen, making a beeline toward the espresso machine. He sorely needed the caffeine. As he passed the kitchen island, though, something caught his eye. A plate had been left out, but it wasn't an empty dish that the housekeepers had failed to put away. A stack of sliced tamago and a grilled smelt sat on top of the porcelain. The food was still warm to the touch through the plastic wrap draped over it to preserve its freshness.

Kaiba knew, for a fact, this wasn't the work of the house staff. Yet it had been placed front and center in such a way that Kaiba wouldn't have missed it.

He fished out his phone and snapped a photo, which he sent to Jounouchi along with the question: _Did you make this?_

After placing his phone on the countertop, he unwrapped the plastic from the plate and picked up a tamago piece with his fingers. The bottom was slightly burnt, and it was over-sweetened for Kaiba's taste. It was also the first time he'd eaten anyone's home cooking in more than a decade—the housekeepers' notwithstanding. 

His phone chirped. A reply from Jounouchi already. Kaiba wondered how far he'd gotten along the property's long driveway before stopping to respond.

> _yeah I did, what about it?_

Pinching the smelt's tail between his fingers, he tore the fried appendage off and popped it into his mouth. He contemplated his response to Jounouchi as he chewed on the savory morsel.

Smelt was Mokuba's favorite, and the staff continued to order it despite the younger Kaiba being out of the country and Kaiba's newfound habit of taking breakfast at work. 

Jounouchi may currently have no impact on his fine-tuned routines, but that didn't mean Kaiba didn't occasionally desire a change. It was within his power to make that decision. 

Before resuming his journey to secure caffeine, Kaiba ate another tamago piece off the plate and sent another message to Jounouchi.

> _For future reference, I prefer savory tamago._

Jounouchi's response came almost immediately.

> _are you asking me to cook for you? don't you pay people to do that?_

> _No. I'm asking you to have breakfast with me next time._

After all, routines were not forever set in stone. 


End file.
